Home remedies for cavities are the revival of ancestral methods. Do you love your grandma? I am sure you do!
So this article is the best gift for her, she will love it because finally, her medical recipes take place in doctors' recommendations!
Because sometimes you need these kinds of Home remedies for cavities until you can go to the doctor, or if the caries is still in the early stages.
What are caries? And how do they form?
Before talking about home remedies for cavities, let's know more about caries.
Caries are those unwanted guests that come without your permission now and then, so let's come closer and see how they form, maybe this will help you to avoid them in future
When you eat food, and you don't brush or floss, the bacteria will appreciate this favor a lot since you are serving them a precious meal! So they start metabolizing and producing acids that form plaques, and with loss of hygiene these plaques will demineralize the teeth causing holes called cavities, the size of these holes and the extent they have reached in your teeth will determine your dental status.
How to prevent caries?
As they always say: Prevention is better than cure, so here you are some advice you may follow to avoid caries :
1- Brush your teeth after every meal and use dental floss. By the way, did you know that 80% of bad breath cases occur because of the tongue! Since it has narrow places where the food can hide in between, so bacteria will metabolize this hiding food resulting in your bad breath, that's why when you use the tongue brush you reduce the problem a lot, you can find this tongue brush in the pharmacy or the supermarket, use it from the back to the front, then take a look at the brush and you will then realize how dirty your tongue was and you did not know about it.
2- Sugar is a magical magnet for bad bacteria, so getting rid of this magnet out of our mouth is a must, thus, we won't get into trouble, also we should always keep in mind that carbs and sticky foods stay for a long time on your tooth especially when you don't brush after each meal.
10 Home remedies for cavities:
Home remedies for cavities are some of your grandma-style methods that have been proven to be effective in healing cavities:
1-Saltwater:
The easiest and the most common method for oral or dental issues, we all have salt and water at home, great! Mix them and get the easiest and cheapest real antimicrobial mouthwash, it also removes the sticky food away and neutralizes the pH level inside the mouth.
2-Vitamin D:
Vitamin D plays a role in calcium and phosphate absorption, so natural vitamin D levels lead to natural calcium and phosphate levels and finally strong bones and teeth.
3-Brushing with fluoride toothpaste:
Fluoride prevents caries and helps the enamel to recover by itself.
4-Oil pulling:
It's an old procedure based on swishing oil around the mouth, such as coconut oil or sesame oil for a specified time as recommended by the dentist, then spit it out the mouth.
Several studies showed that oil pulling is useful for getting rid of plaques, and fighting the bacteria as much as chlorhexidine.
5-Licorice root:
Because of its antimicrobial properties, the licorice root extract can help in our case and fight against the bacteria responsible for caries.
Someone went more creative and made lycorine lollipops which were also useful since the effective ingredient stays a long time in touch with the tooth.
6-Avoid phytic acid:
Phytic acid is a component found in cereals and legumes, it exerts its harmful action by affecting the mineral absorption from the food you eat, in other words, calcium and phosphate, so can you imagine this battle between phytic acid and vitamin D? One of them is helpful, the other one is nasty, who wins? You decide!
So maybe now you need to know where you find phytic acid, here you are:
Some sources of phytic acid:
Rice
Wheat
Maize
Kidney beans
Navy beans
7-Clove:
Clove contains a major component called eugenol and due to its anti-inflammatory- antibacterial properties, it becomes a great helper in dental issues, it can relieve pain and stops the caries spread.
8-Sugar-free gum:
Take it between meals, it will help to remineralize the enamel, increasing saliva secretion, raising the plaque ph, and as a result, this will reduce the bacteria in the mouth.
9-Neem:
In the past a lot of people used to brush their teeth with neem sticks, and chewing neem leaves for a while then spitting them out then rinsing with water, this simple way helped ancient people to maintain their dental health.
10- The last but the most important home remedies for cavities and I know that you don't want to hear!
Cut out sugary foods and drinks, or at least reduce your sugary intake, this is the major piece in the puzzle, as you see above, most solutions are based on fighting bacteria, most of them are antimicrobial agents, so you have an enemy and you face him with different weapons... Now, what about stop giving him food? Devil's idea isn't it?
A lot of health problems are related to:
High sugar diet, cavities, weight gain, diabetes, and even cancer, that is why it is worth sacrificing this tasty ingredient since it carries a risk for many health-related problems.
When to go to the dentist?
The dentist is not that favorite place for most of us, and I know that you won’t like to visit him any time soon, so if you follow his lead maybe you won’t need to see him, also your routinely check-up visits could help you because most cavities start without pain and you don't realize they are there until you go for a check-up at your dentist. Thus, you may solve the problem before it becomes harder.
If all the above home remedies for cavities did not work or help now it's the time to talk to your dentist and book an appointment.
Summary
Do you see how small your tooth is? There is a college teaching medicine only for this small organ(dentistry) and another college teaching medicine related to the whole rest of your body! (faculty of medicine). Now you can imagine how much this small organ is affecting your whole health, so it deserves more extra care than you do right?
By/ Dr. Sawsan Rahal
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